Happily Ever After
I'm not stupid. I know my brother's a jerk to everyone. The difference is that I know that he's a different kind of jerk than he was even five years ago, right when our adoptive father died. I wasn't an idiot back then, either; I was more than aware that Seto was certifiably insane. He tied to Yugi in a game, which drove him crazy in the worst possible way. For the longest time, I couldn't understand why Seto hated Yugi and his friends so much. Heck, I couldn't even say why I hated them so much, aside from the fact that Seto despised them and I felt that it was my duty to back up my brother with anything he wanted to accomplish.
Yes, even if that included the deaths of four innocent high school students who only tried to warmly invite my brother in their lives. I've felt bad about that ever since Yugi beat Seto for the first time. The memory of Seto staring blankly into empty space in front of him, cards splayed all over the table in front of him, and Yugi sitting silently across from him with that solemn not-quite-a-smirk on his face will never be erased from my memory, nor will the seemingly endless months of pain that followed while my brother sat in the darkness of his own heart, piecing together what he had lost…or so Yugi said; I prefer to think that he was finding what had been stolen from him.
And he did! It just sucked that the next thing he had to do was go through more hell. To this day, I don't really know what happened to him during that whole façade…I just remember feeling a distinctly anxious aura-like sensation emanating from him; he always seemed so frantic and almost afraid. Of course, whenever anyone challenged him or got in his way, he held his own against them, no matter what the cost. Once, the price was his own life-which wasn't unusual, except for the fact that he was the one who set it. Seto never told me about that; it was Joey Wheeler who told me that my brother forced Yugi to forfeit a duel by threatening to hurt himself. I know it wasn't one of his prouder moments, and I was pretty shaken up about it-in fact, that's why Seto tried banning Joey from his tournament later on-but looking back, he was just too scared. He didn't know what else to do, and he preyed on Yugi's compassion. Obviously, it came back to haunt him, since he lost to Pegasus anyhow, which opened the door to Yugi saving us for the first time. What bothered Seto about that was that he never asked Yugi to help; Yugi just did. It sounds ridiculous, but we've never really had anyone care enough about us to just do something like that without expecting anything in return, and that's what provoked Seto to change again.
My anxious, worried big brother suddenly turned colder, harder, and angrier. It got to the point where the only thing keeping him going was the obsession of taking down the guy who saved our lives for no viable reason aside from the fact he wouldn't just leave us to rot in that madman's dungeon. But that was it: Seto would disappear for days at a time, and he stopped eating, sleeping, and working on anything, except for strategies and duel disks. Roland and I were forced to do his paperwork during those times when we simply didn't know where Seto ran off.
I think it was a combination of everything that happened with Noah and his next inevitable loss to Yugi that shocked Seto into changing again. We talked on the way home, and he apologized for hurting me, along with not realizing that I'd been hurting. Of course he didn't suddenly end up all warm and cuddly and open with people, but from what I saw, he was starting to actually like being around Yugi, Joey, Téa, and Tristan. His jabs at Joey got a little less malicious and almost a little more good-natured; I think even Yugi, Téa, and Tristan got that, because there were times when Seto would pick on Joey, and they would laugh. Even though my brother remained relatively cold, I saw the semi-warm human feelings for those four dorks starting to come through.
But as far as Joey, it's so easy to get a reaction out of that guy that you'd have to be pretty boring to not rile him up.
Seto was more relaxed, even if it didn't seem like it to other people. He let go of some control when he could, and he even let his employees actually do their jobs. When we went home at the end of the day, he'd watch TV and play video games with me all evening, and then he'd go up to his bedroom. That used to be his code for thinking he'd entertained me enough for a specific amount of time, and that he had work to finish-which he actually did from bed on his laptop, but still…it defeated the point of "going to bed." But it seemed like after he finally let all that anger, hatred, and disgust go, he didn't have all that overbearing extra motivation. He did seem to sleep better though, because when I went to say goodnight to him before going to bed myself, I'd crack the door open just enough to look in on him, and I'd find him sound asleep in his bed instead of on his desk. I always woke him up to hug him anyway, because I felt he needed me to show I love him unconditionally. And I always will. Seto's made so much progress and I'm happy for him.
"Seto, I'm proud of you."
Kaiba took his eyes off his monitor and stared over at Mokuba with a questioning look on his face.
"Because…?"
The kid grinned and bounced off the couch he'd been lounging on for the past few hours. "You've come a long way over the years. I'm just happy to have my brother back." Mokuba wanted to add almost, but he knew that one seemingly innocuous word would cause pain in both of them. He really was proud of his brother; it was just that he'd only started accepting that things would never go back to the way they were before Gozaburo. Still, he knew that his brother loved him, and that gave him hope for the future.
The elder Kaiba didn't respond, but when Mokuba hopped over to hug him, he was more than happy to receive the gesture, even holding his little brother longer and more tightly than usual. The kid's smile broke even wider and he playfully tightened his grip around his brother; Kaiba followed suit, causing Mokuba to break into a fit of laughter.
"Seto, you're going to break me!" he gasped between giggles, but he wasn't released either. A tiny smile appeared on Kaiba's face as he buried it into Mokuba's hair and pulled him even closer, causing the little Kaiba to shriek happily and fruitlessly attempt to wriggle away, which just wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
Roland had just entered the room, holding a file from another company wanting to set up a meeting with Kaiba; however, when he walked in and saw what appeared to be his bosses having an exceedingly rare tender brotherly moment, his eyes widened and he immediately stepped back out, pulling out his walkie-talkie as he headed back out the door of the manor.
"Mr. Kaiba's occupied right now and unable to set up an appointment at this time. We'll respond to the request tomorrow."